After a year of FaceTiming, we met for the first time at Birmingham’s New Street Station and we found our elbows intertwined without any hint of awkwardness. Being in the UK, there was no doubt that our first meal together could be anything but Nando’s – a South African chain, famous for its Portuguese chicken, somehow, immensely popular in England. We ordered the peri-peri chicken platter. Me – with fries and garlic bread. Her – with fries and corn on the cob. We both dug into our garlic-and-herb marinated chicken which fell off the bone with every touch. Me, methodical with every bite – first the chicken, then the fries, then the garlic bread. She – tactically combining the perfect ratios of chicken to fries to corn. As we walked back to my Airbnb hand-in-hand, she said, “I’d never have known that you eat one thing at a time if we hadn’t met in person.” [150]
by Harjas Singh
Table Tales - 150 word stories 